MT221 Unit 10 Service Improvement Proposal Example

Ask for the VIN, See the Camera, Load the Right Glass: A Unit 10 Service Improvement Proposal

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT221: Customer Service

Unit 10 Service Improvement Proposal

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Northline Auto Glass, its complaint data, pilot results and every cost are composite and illustrative; bracketed figures stand where the company's records and vendor quotes would supply the numbers; the sources cited are real.

Summary

Northline Auto Glass should change its booking and parts process in three ways: schedulers record the vehicle identification number on every booking call; customers text a photo of the windshield's camera and sensor area before the visit; and the parts desk checks each windshield against the decoded vehicle record before it is loaded. An eight-week pilot at the Indianapolis north location cut wrong-glass second visits by about [60] percent. The changes cost about [$34,000] to set up and about [$1,750] a month to run, save about [$8,500] a month in avoided trips and complaints, and pay back in about five months.

Evidence

The proposal starts from what customers complained about. Over twelve months the company logged [1,318] complaints, which the customer care lead coded by main cause. Arranged from most to least frequent, [409] involved a return trip after the delivered glass did not fit the car, [316] a late arrival, [198] silence about when a part would arrive, [158] billing surprises, usually about insurance deductibles, [119] a problem within thirty days of the install such as a leak or a camera warning, [66] technician conduct and [52] other causes.

The first cause alone accounts for about 31 percent of complaints, and it also drives the third, since a part status question usually follows a failed first visit. Together those two make up nearly half. Juran and Godfrey (1999) described the Pareto principle as separating the vital few causes from the useful many, and here one cause and its consequence account for nearly half of all complaints.

Why the Wrong Glass Arrives

Units 2 and 6 traced the cause. The booking script records make, model and year, yet never the seventeen-character identification number or the presence of a camera, rain sensor, heated wiper area or acoustic glass. Windshields for the same model year can differ in all of those, and the parts desk orders the most common version. The technician discovers the mismatch at the customer's car, after the customer has arranged the visit.

The Proposal

The proposal combines three changes. First, the booking script adds the vehicle identification number, read from the dashboard or the insurance card, which the booking software decodes into the exact glass part. Second, the customer receives a text link to send a photo of the area behind the rearview mirror, which shows any camera or sensor bracket. Third, the parts desk compares each windshield with the decoded record and the photo before loading it, and flags any mismatch to the scheduler a day ahead so the customer can be rebooked before anyone waits at a car.

Zeithaml et al. (2018) note that service quality depends on standards the customer never sees, and all three changes sit backstage. The customer's only new step is a photo, which most customers in the pilot sent within an hour. Several said the request made them more confident that the right part would arrive, an effect on trust that the pilot did not set out to measure but that the survey comments repeated.

Pilot Results

The pilot ran for eight weeks at one location covering about [1,050] jobs. The share of jobs needing a second visit because of wrong glass fell from about [9] percent to about [3.5] percent. Complaints about part status fell by about half. Average booking calls grew by about two minutes. Nine percent of customers did not send a photo, and the parts desk relied on the decoded vehicle record alone for them, which still caught most mismatches.

Alternatives Considered

Two cheaper options were considered and rejected. Retraining schedulers to ask more questions about features, without the identification number, was tested informally for two weeks; customers often did not know whether their car had a rain sensor or acoustic glass, and mismatches barely fell. Ordering the most fully equipped windshield for every model would avoid most mismatches but would raise glass costs by about [$60] a job and leave many customers paying for features their cars do not have. The identification number with a photo check is the only option that gets the right glass without guessing.

Cost

Setup costs about [$34,000]: [$9,000] to connect a vehicle identification decoder to the booking software, [$5,000] for the photo intake tool and staff training, and [$20,000] for van racks and a small stock of the most common camera-equipped windshields at each location. Running costs are about [$1,750] a month: [$450] for the decoder subscription, [$200] for the photo tool and about [$1,100] in added scheduler time.

Savings and Payback

Each avoided second visit saves about [$85] in technician time, fuel and van wear, before counting the customer's time. Across the company's roughly [1,850] jobs a month, the pilot's reduction would avoid about [100] second visits a month, worth about [$8,500]. Net of running costs, the change saves about [$6,750] a month and pays back its setup cost in about five months.

The cheapest improvement in the whole company is a question the scheduler forgot to ask.

The savings leave out two benefits that are harder to count. Fewer failed visits should raise the recommendation score, which Unit 8 showed depends mainly on first-visit completion, and fewer angry calls should lighten the schedulers' load, which Unit 9 linked to turnover. Heskett et al. (1994) argued that employee satisfaction, service quality and customer loyalty reinforce one another, and this change touches all three.

Risks

Three risks need managing. Some customers will not know where to find the identification number; the script will offer the windshield corner or the insurance card. Decoders can be wrong for rare models; the photo check is the backup. And schedulers under pressure may skip the new question; the booking software will not release an order without it.

Measures

Success will be measured by wrong-glass second visits as a share of jobs, with a target below [4] percent within two quarters; part status complaints per month; first-visit completion, aiming for [85] percent by the end of next year; and the share of bookings with a recorded identification number, which should be near 100 percent. Hart et al. (1990) argued that complaints are the cheapest market research a company can get, and this proposal treats a year of them as exactly that.

References

Hart, C. W. L., Heskett, J. L., & Sasser, W. E., Jr. (1990). The profitable art of service recovery. Harvard Business Review, 68(4), 148-156.

Heskett, J. L., Jones, T. O., Loveman, G. W., Sasser, W. E., Jr., & Schlesinger, L. A. (1994). Putting the service-profit chain to work. Harvard Business Review, 72(2), 164-174.

Juran, J. M., & Godfrey, A. B. (1999). Juran's quality handbook (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J., & Gremler, D. D. (2018). Services marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm (7th ed.). McGraw-Hill.